History of Feminist Majority Foundation

1999

The Feminist Majority Foundation becomes sole
administrator of a compassionate use program for mifepristone,
distributing the drug to patients with meningioma (brain tumors),
fibroid tumors, endometriosis, ovarian cancer and other serious diseases and conditions that particularly affect women.
Patients respond overwhelmingly to the opportunity to have
access to this drug to treat serious conditions untreatable
by other medications before its approval by the FDA. FMF
continues to work for mifepristone's approval for use in the
U.S., as a method of medical
abortionand for the expansion of clinical trials
on other promising uses.

The Feminist Majority Foundation releases its sixth annual National
Clinic Violence Survey, showing that 22.2% of clinics
continued to experience severe violence (including blockades,
invasions, bomb threats and stalking). This represents a slight
decrease from the previous year.

Women are still only 13.3% of police officers, according
to the National Center for Women and Policing's second annual
report, not much of an increase over last year's 12%.
As in 1997, most of the departments with high numbers of women
in their ranks are under consent decrees that mandate them
to hire more women.

The Feminist Majority Foundation urges the FBI and Department
of Justice to increase the reward offered for information
leading to the arrest of Charles Kopp, an anti-abortion
extremist charged with the October 21 murder of Dr. Barnett
Slepian. As a result of FMF's efforts, the FBI places Kopp
on its Ten Most Wanted list, along with Eric Robert Rudolph,
charged with the 1998 bombing of an Alabama women's clinic,
the Olympic Park bombing and the bombing of an Atlanta lesbian
nightclub.

The Feminist Majority Foundation's Campaign
to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan spurs a rescue
mission of Afghan refugees whose lives are being
threatened by the terrorist militia, the Taliban. Sixteen
members of Afghan journalist Nazira Karimi's family and
21-year-old Maryam "Giti" Shams reach the United States
after fleeing the Taliban's edicts that stripped women and
girls of their basic human rights.

In a magnificent show of support for international women's
human rights, entertainment headliners on the east coast
join women's rights and human rights leaders in New York,
NY to expose the brutal treatment of women and girls living
under gender apartheid in Afghanistan. The event, sponsored
by the Feminist Majority Foundation and GLAMOUR
magazine, features keynote speaker Meryl Streep and a showing of the dramatic documentary "Shroud
of Silence," produced by FMF Board Member Lorraine
Sheinberg. The event also features musical performances
by Joan Osborne, Melissa Etheridge, and Jessica Tivens and on-stage performaces by Laura
Dern, Marlo Thomas, and Bonnie Fuller,
Editor of GLAMOUR magazine.

Using cutting-edge interactive Internet Technology, the Feminist Majority Foundation launches the Choices
Campus Community at www.feministcampus.org in a
move to strengthen progressive organizing by enabling inter-campus
communication and online training and support for thousands
of feminist campus activists.

President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary
Rodham Clinton honor Dolores Huerta, secretary/treasurer
and co-founder of United Farm Workers and Feminist Majority
Foundation Board Member since its founding in 1987, at the 1999 Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award Ceremony
at the White House. Huerta is honored for her work on behalf
of U.S. farmworkers, and for her commitment to women's rights
and political empowerment.